THEIR COMEBACK was originally slated for 12 dates dotted about the country.

THEIR COMEBACK was originally slated for 12 dates dotted about the country.

But the latest tour by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark reaches its 39th and final performance at this year’s Summer Pops.

It is the classic line-up of Andy McCluskey, Paul Humphreys, Malcolm Holmes and Martin Cooper which appears at Aintree Racecourse Arena on Saturday, July 21, 29 years after their first appearance at the legendary Eric’s in Mathew Street.

McCluskey, 49, has spent the 10 years since putting OMD on the back burner writing number one hits for Atomic Kitten and forming girl group Genie Queen, but his first band was never far away from his mind.

He told Your Time: “I suppose it is a comeback. We have been talking about it for two years and the tour has grown from our original idea.

“There will be a new album as well, but I would say that is about 18 months off.

“Before then we have an installation at FACT as part of the 2008 celebrations and some concerts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.”

Not surprisingly, when OMD played the Liverpool Empire earlier this year, the stage felt like a pair of snug, electro-synth slippers.

Andy continued: “The Empire was seen as the real homecoming gig of the tour as we know the place so well. It went really well. It got a 10 out of 10 rating in the Echo, which doesn’t happen very often.

“Most of the audience at the shows are in their 30s and 40s, but there are younger faces in there as well.

“We have this huge LED screen which lets us see a lot more of the crowd than we usually do, it’s great.

“With the tour being longer than expected the Summer Pops is definitely the end-of-tour party for us, and it’s good to finish on home turf. Because of that we’ll be including a few tracks that haven’t been performed on the tour so far.”

Andy put OMD carefully to one side in 1996, believing their distinctive sound would stick out like a blot on the Britpop landscape.

It’s a different story now.

He went on: “We were an ‘80s synth band, which is how they describe us, we would never have been taken seriously back then.

“These are post-modern times we live in now, so absolutely anything goes. It is cool to sound like OMD these days.”

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark close Summer Pops 2007 on Saturday, July 21.